


to boldly go where no band has gone before

by hanrams



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Humor, M/M, Star Trek AU, alien weed, space boyfriends, this is a crackfic in case you couldn't tell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:30:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5368529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanrams/pseuds/hanrams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Liam Payne of the Starship Enterprise is beamed down to a mysterious planet where he finds a handsome creature awaiting him. What is the story behind this handsome stranger, and more importantly, why can't Captain Payne look away? Meanwhile, what have his crew members, Officer Styles and Doctor Tomlinson, been smoking? A Star Trek AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. an exploration of a new world

It had been a long day aboard the Starship Enterprise. Captain Payne, after a long day in the control room, settled down to enjoy a cup of tea (which he stirred with a fork). He was just opening up the newspaper when Officer Styles burst in.

“Sir, it’s an emergency! We’ve been picking up mysterious signals from an unknown planet. It’s never been seen before!”

Captain Payne swore and put down his tea. “Okay, I’ll be back to the control room as soon as possible. Thank you, Styles.”

~

Settling into the captain’s chair, Liam studied the screen. “First things first,” he said. “What does that little blinking dot mean?”

The other people in the room stared at him. “That’s our ship, Captain,” said Officer Horan nervously. He exchanged a nervous glance with Styles. How on earth did Captain Payne ever get through Starfleet training?

“Right,” said Liam. “I was just testing you. Anyway, I think it best if we beam a couple of men down to see what’s going on, and to collect some samples to take back for testing.” Liam looked at Harry, who was once again positioned at his station. “Styles, can you give me a reading?”

“The atmosphere is livable, with an oxygen ratio within 2% of Earth's. The temperature is a bit higher, but it’s definitely inhabitable. We should be okay as long as we spend enough time outside.”

“Thank you, Styles. I’ll go down myself, and call for backup if I need it.”

“But sir,” Horan protested. “You’ve got an entire ship full of people who could go. Why go yourself, if you’re the most valuable member of the crew?”

Liam laughed. “Haven’t you ever seen an episode of Star Trek? Kirk never let anyone else do anything. He always went on missions himself.”

~

Liam was beamed down. As he materialized on the planet’s surface, he took out his contact device. “Payne to Enterprise. It’s really fucking hot down here. Payne out.”

As Liam fanned himself with his hand, he began to walk and take a look around. The planet was indeed very humid, and illuminated by two suns, one small and red and one large and blue. This effect gave a purplish hue to the entire outdoor planet. There was a long grass-like plant covering the entire hilly surface of the planet, and a small house-like pile of rocks stood a little while away.

Liam pulled a few strands of the weed covering the ground out and stuffed them into his pocket. “There,” he said to himself. At this point, he’d technically gotten the samples he needed. But what’s a story without a bit of extra exploring? Liam began to make his way to the pile of stones.

As he reached what he assumed was supposed to be a door to the house, he heard a small scuffle from within. Liam froze and took out his communication device. “Payne to Enterprise,” he said. “Any signs of life detected below?”

“No signs of life detected—,” began Styles, then there was a pause. “Correction. One singular organic being resides on the planet. Captain, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Liam said, and hung up. He forgot to say “Payne out”, and cursed himself. It was such a cool thing to be able to say, and he just lost himself an opportunity! Goddamn it.

He approached the door warily. “Who’s in there?” he said. There was a weird squeaking sound from inside. Liam opened the door anyway. Fuck common sense.

As he stepped inside, Liam took in every detail of the room. It was kind of small. And made of stone. There was a window. These were the important little details he observed within his first impression of the room.

Oh yeah, there was also a guy cowering in the corner of the room. He had his hands over his face and was making little squeaking sounds. _Those must have been the squeaks I was hearing from outside,_ Liam thought to himself.

He looked at the guy and admired his many muscles, despite the fact that he was huddled on the floor. He had a nice physique, slender but muscular. He was wearing nothing but some boxer shorts. Liam thought, _I’d be down_.

~

Meanwhile, on the Starship Enterprise, everyone was totally not doing their jobs. Why should they? The boss wasn’t even on board. A mini rave had begun in the dining hall. Tables had been pushed against the wall and a disco ball was hanging from the ceiling. Where did they get all of this, you ask? Let’s just say the Captain always had his DJing stuff somewhere stashed away, and most of the officers knew where to find it.

One person wasn’t enjoying the rave. Doctor Tomlinson was standing on the balcony of the Starship Enterprise right outside the dining hall, smoking a cigarette and looking out at space dramatically.

Inside, Officer Styles was dancing (terribly) when he noticed the doctor standing all alone. He made his way to the door and stepped outside onto the balcony.

“Hey,” he said, leaning on the rail next to Louis. Louis looked over at him, then dramatically turned back to his observation of space and the planet which Captain Payne was currently occupying.

“How the fuck are we standing outside if there’s no oxygen in space?” Harry wondered aloud.

“Don’t ask me, mate, it’s a fucking fanfiction,” Louis responded, taking another drag of his cigarette. “So, what brings you out here?”

“There was a really good-looking man standing out here I wanted to talk to,” replied Harry smoothly, smirking.

“Well, there’s no one out here but me, so you were probably hallucinating,” said Louis sarcastically. He handed Harry the cigarette, and Harry took a drag himself. Then he started coughing.

“What the fuck is that, mate?” Harry wheezed, tears streaming from his eyes.

“I don’t know. I just found it.”

“ _Found it?_ Jesus, man, where?”

"On that planet with the elf-people.”

“What the fuck, you gave me alien weed?” Harry’s eyes bulged as he stared at the other guy.

Louis smirked. “Yeah, I guess so.” Then he started laughing. Harry looked nervously at him, then began chuckling himself. It was pretty funny. Then Harry took another drag and leaned against Louis’s shoulder, right before he broke down coughing again. Handing the blunt back to Louis, he said aggressively, “Get this shit away from me.”

~

Back on the unknown purple planet, Liam was talking to the beautiful squeaking man with the dark hair.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said, reaching for his communication device. “Do you have a name?”

The man ceased his squeaking. He did truly have beautiful brown eyes, Liam noticed; the eyes in question were looking him up and down, and Liam was suddenly very self-conscious.

“What are you?” Liam said, even though the guy had already made it clear he spoke, like, mice-language or something, and probably didn’t understand a word of English. The guy tilted his head and crawled toward Liam. He started sniffing him. Liam was, to no reader’s surprise, super turned on.

The guy grinned, showing razor-sharp teeth. “Holy shit,” said Liam. “Do you want to come back to my Starship? You seem harmless enough, and you could do with a shower or something.” For however attractive this mysterious shark-like man was, he definitely needed a goddamn bath.

A few squeaks later, Liam took out his communication device and called Officer Styles.

“Payne to Enterprise, am I clear?”

"Yeah, mate, I hear you,” said a voice that definitely wasn’t the voice of Styles.

“What the fuck?” Liam said. “Doctor Louis, is that you?” Liam heard a voice say “oh shit” and some scuffling, then Styles said, “This is Styles, what’s up?”

“There’s a guy on this planet down here, and I’m going to have him beamed up with me,” Liam said, totally unfazed by the fact that Styles and Tomlinson were probably (definitely) hooking up. “I’m just giving you a heads up so you can tell everyone to destroy all evidence of your party.”

“Okay, I — wait, how did you …?”

"I know everything, Styles. Okay, beam me up.”


	2. a man of mystery

Once back aboard the Starship, Liam carried the guy princess-style into the hospital ward and, with the help of (one very high) Doctor Tomlinson, laid him down on a cot. He immediately fell asleep and began to snore with his mouth wide open. Liam thought the snoring was kinda cute. 

“What’s the story, morning glory?” asked Louis.

“I found this guy,” said Liam pointlessly. After a glare from the doc, Liam hastily went on, “On the planet, I mean. He seems to have been abandoned, or lost.”

“Aight, lemme just check his vitals,” Louis slurred. After a quick pulse, heart rate, blood pressure, and whatever else the doctors need to do to check if someone is healthy, Louis said, “He seems to have suffered from some sort of trauma. We should wake him up.”

“Are you sure—,” Liam said anxiously, but there’s no stopping a doctor who’s high. Louis shook the dark-haired man violently and yelled, “HEY MATE, WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

With a squeak, the guy jerked awake. Louis stopped shaking him and everyone in the room observed with apprehension. Liam noticed the fear in his eyes, and felt his heart melt. He took a nervous step forward.

The man looked up and appeared to recognize Liam. The fear in his eyes seemed to subside, and he leaned forward. It felt as though everybody in the room was holding their breath in that one moment — but all he did was sniff Liam again. Liam closed his eyes and grinned, feeling the closeness between them.An Irish throat being cleared jerked him out of it.

“Okay, erm, uh, what, um…How are we supposed to understand him, if he does nothing but squeak?” Liam asked, taking a reluctant step away, although it went against every primal urge his body was telling him to act on.

Harry piped up, “We could try changing the channel.”

Liam looked at him. What the fuck did that mean? Harry looked completely serious, though. His eyes also looked very, very red.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Louis, and he approached the shark-mouse-man and hit him really hard on the head with his fist. Liam gasped, worried for his beautiful new alien friend, but he just shook his head, looked around, and started making loud, elephant-like noises with his mouth. Everyone covered their ears with their hands.

“Sorry!” yelled Louis, and he quickly hit the guy on the head again. This time after the head shake, he looked around, and spoke.

“ماذا يحدث هنا؟”

“What the hell is he even saying?” asked Officer Horan. “Is that fucking Arabic?”

“Sounds like it,” agreed Louis. “Sorry, wrong channel.” He hit the guy on the head one last time.

~

Blinking, the guy looked up. He was rather dazed at this point, and felt his head throbbing at several different points. Standing above him was what appeared some kind of rodent-human hybrid.

“What’s going on?” he asked in English, looking around at several faces that looked rather surprised. The mouse man raised his eyebrows and grinned, spreading his arms wide.

“What’d I tell ya?” said Louis happily. Harry looked disgruntled.

“I’m the one who suggested it!” he insisted, punching Louis in the arm. Louis just laughed, and after a second of glaring, Harry laughed too. Neither of them quite knew what the fuck they were laughing _about_ , but as long as you’re stoned, who really gives a shit?

Liam stepped forward from the group and addressed the new man.

“My name is Officer Liam Payne. Can you understand me?” Liam wondered what exactly this man was. How did he understand English if he was from a distant planet? And why, more importantly, was this alien (if an alien at all) so fucking attractive?

“Yeah, of course I can understand you,” responded the man slowly. “I could understand you from the second I met you.”

Liam’s eyes widened. “Really?” he breathed. For a second it felt as though he and this beautiful mystery man were the only ones in the room. Then the Irish guy cleared his throat again, and Liam was brought back to Earth - well, as close to back to Earth as you can get when you’re aboard the USS Enterprise. Which is a spaceship. In space. Not on Earth.

“Mm-hmm,” said the guy. “Really.” He looked around again. “Where am I?”

“You’re aboard the Enterprise,” said Liam, keeping steady eye contact with the man, who waited.

“Well?” he said, after a few moments. “What the hell is that?”

Liam looked aghast. “You mean you’re not a sci-fi nerd — I mean, you’ve never seen Star Trek?”

The guy was confused. “No?” he said uncertainly, feeling uneasy. Some tutting was heard around the room and multiple heads were being shaken. Louis had his elbow resting on Harry’s shoulder while Harry held his hands behind his  back, and the two had their heads turned down with eyes closed, as though in mourning. The new guy didn’t know what the hell was going on.

“Okay, that’s kind of a blow,” Liam said, feeling a bit hurt. No, a lot hurt. This guy didn’t even like sci-fi … Liam turned away. A single tear rolled dramatically down his cheek. To think — he had thought this man might — but no matter. It was all over now.

The only one unaffected by this unexpected plot twist was Niall. He approached the guy and said simply, “It’s a spaceship.”

“Oh, thanks!” responded the guy brightly. Then he nervously looked at Liam, who had his right fist held against the wall and the other clenched behind his back in a classic angsty, dramatic pose. “What’s his deal?” he asked in an aside to Niall.

“Oh, he’s the main character of this fanfic,” Niall responded. “He’s just doing the classic angst thing typical of male protagonists.”

The mystery man felt better. “Thanks,” he said. 

“No problem.”

MM got up and walked over to Liam, putting a hand tentatively on his shoulder. Liam moved his head to look at him, feeling his shoulder tingle where the man touched it. As Liam looked into those eyes … those beautiful brown eyes … he … he could …

Liam shook his head. No room for angst and longing now. This guy didn’t even like sci-fi! But now that he came to think about it … how could he? The planet they found him on didn’t even have televisions. Liam pondered this as he stared into those beautiful brown eyes that seemed to peer right into the depths of his soul. Then he turned to face him properly.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said. “I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“He’s never doing anything straight,” muttered Louis.

“I got ahead of myself,” continued Liam, “and expected you to be everything I ever dreamed of. The thing is, you’re not. You can’t be. Because dreams aren’t real.”

“They are if you know what to smoke,” piped up Harry.

Liam steamrollered on, “But you’re so much more than a dream. You’re a living, breathing human being — well, actually, I don’t know what the fuck you are. But I know that you’ve got a heart, and — wait, I don’t know that either.” He paused. “What exactly are you?”

The man looked taken aback for a moment, then confused. Then he went on, “I’m … I’m human.”


	3. an unexpected visitor

There was silence. Then Harry made a face and said, “If you’re a human, then what were you doing away from Earth? Why were you down on that other planet?”

“Where are your clothes?” asked Louis.

“How long have you been there?”

“Have you ever met the Crystal Gems?”

“Everybody give him some space!” Liam shouted. The guy looked grateful, then he stood up. Everyone went silent.

“I don’t know why I’m here, or what’s happened to me,” he said. “I only remember little bits and pieces … not enough to piece into a full story quite yet.” He looked around. There were some disappointed faces, some concerned. But the only face he could really take note of was Liam’s. And what a beautiful face that was … with big brown puppy dog eyes that looked so eagerly back at him….

His thoughts were interrupted.

“Do you even have a name?” Louis yelled, making both the guy and Liam jump. “Because we’ve been talking to you for about fifteen minutes, and we still don’t know what to call you.”

Liam turned to glare at Louis, who suddenly was just inexplicably on Harry’s shoulders piggyback style, but before he could say anything, he had to admit to himself that the doc had a point. He turned back to the new guy.

“What’s your name?”

“Oh, that,” said the man. “It’s … Zayn.”

Just then, there was a scream from somewhere above them, and a voice said, “OH, THANK FUCKING GOD.”

Everybody jumped. Louis caught Harry in his arms, Scooby Doo style.

“How many goddamn times have I referred to you as ‘mystery man’ or ‘the guy’? It’s ALL FINALLY OVER!” The voice thundered and shook the starship.

“Who is that?” Harry squeaked. “God? Is that you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry,” said Louis. “It’s obviously not God.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” said Niall, looking exasperated. “It’s the author of this story. It’s Hannah.”

Everybody looked confused. “What?” they all said confusedly in perfect unison.

“That’s insane,” said Liam. “The author of a story can’t be in the story, that’d be mad.”

“Nah, he’s right,” said the voice, making everyone jump again. “It’s me, the author.”

“What do you want?” said Zayn, reciting his first glorious line with his name attached to him.

“Nothing, I just got excited, that’s all,” said the voice, “because I don’t have to refer to you with stupid fucking epithets every five goddamn seconds. It gets old, you know.”

“Oh,” said Zayn, a bit stunned. “Well, er, sorry about that, I guess.”

“Yeah, you better be,” the voice snarled. Then it resumed a cheerful tone. “Anyway, have a good rest of the fic!”

And just like that, the voice disappeared.

~

“Okay,” said Liam, shaking his head to clear it, “well, if you don’t know anything about yourself besides your name … would you like to join our crew?” He looked hopefully at Zayn (oh, it feels so good not to use an annoying epithet), who looked a bit stunned, then smiled.

“That would be —”

“Oh, hold up just a fucking second,” interrupted Louis. “How the hell is he gonna join the crew when he hasn’t got proper training? I didn’t go through three years of Starfleet medical school for nothing, you know!” He crossed his arms and looked indignant.

“Louis, please,” said Liam, putting a hand up, “Have you seen him?”

“Yeah,” piped up Zayn, “Have you _seen_ me?”

Louis looked about to argue, but Harry put an arm around his shoulder. “Louis,” said Harry, “he’ll get training, of course. But honestly, what else would he do? Where would he go? We’re in the middle of outer space.”

Louis looked like he wanted to, I don’t know, start a Twitter fight with Zayn or something. But he looked down at Harry’s hand on his shoulder and his expression changed. Into one of vague confusion. He picked up the hand.

“Have your hands always been this massive?”

“Aaand you’re super high,” said Harry, steering Louis out of the room. As the pair left, Harry could be heard saying, “Hey, you got any more of that alien weed?”

~

Once Louis and Harry were gone, Liam turned to Niall.

“Do you think you can handle training the new recruit?” he said, nodding toward Zayn. Niall was taken aback.

“But sir, I would have thought _you_ wanted to train him,” he said. He noticed Zayn looking a bit downcast at this new bit of information and felt a little hurt. Sure, he was no Liam, but what was so bad about being trained by Niall? Niall felt his eyes begin to well with tears and he looked up at the ceiling, trying to blink them back.

Liam stared at Niall. The fuck was going on? He just started crying out of nowhere? “Um, well, I have duties as captain, remember? I’ve got to run the ship, I don’t have time to train new recruits.” He looked nervously at the officer.

Niall wiped his eyes and pulled himself together. “I’ll — I’ll do it, sir,” he choked. “I’ll train Zayn, Captain Payne.”

“Good. And here, have a tissue and stop being a pussy,” Liam told Niall, handing him a small package of Kleenex. Niall took them and dabbed his eyes.

Liam approached Zayn and put a hand on his shoulder. “Officer Horan is one of my best men,” he told him. “I would trust him with my life. You’ll be okay with him.”

Zayn tensed up, then relaxed. “Okay,” he said. “I trust you. I don’t know why, but . . . I do.”

Liam felt his heart flutter. He became very aware of his hand on Zayn’s shoulder. There were mere inches between them . . . but no. Now was not the time. As much as he wanted to make out with this guy, there was something inside him that told him to wait. Also, he didn’t know if he would cut his tongue or something on those sharp-ass shark teeth in Zayn’s mouth, and he wasn’t about to find out the hard way. Not yet, anyway.

He took his hand off Zayn’s shoulder and turned to Officer Horan. “Well, I’ll see you later, Officer.” He nodded curtly and turned to walk back to the control room.

Niall turned to Zayn. “Well, shall we get started, then?”

~

Meanwhile, shit was going down in the hospital ward, where Doctor Tomlinson usually resided.

He and Officer Styles had found some more outer space cannabis. Or rather, they stole the grass samples Liam had taken from the purple planet and rolled them up in some blunts to see whether or not they could get high off them.

“You go first,” Harry said, nervously watching Louis as he eyed the blunt in his hand. Louis smirked, tempted to call him out on the fact that he clearly being a wimp about trying new unknown possible drugs, but just as he made eye contact with Harry, he nearly drowned in his eyes. Those sea-green, beautiful eyes, eyes that seemed to peer right into Louis’ soul. I know I already used the “looking into your soul” cliché with eyes earlier when describing Zayn’s eyes, but that’s why I’m writing fanfiction and not young adult vampire novels which employ the use of a thesaurus more often than not. And honestly, it’s a pretty beautiful cliché.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, Louis drowned in Harry’s eyes. He was only brought to the surface of the water by a worried voice, and as he came splashing up for air, he saw Harry’s lips moving. “Louis?” they seemed to be mouthing. “Are you alright?”

The doctor shook his head, clearing the water out of his ears. “Am I — oh, yeah, I’m fine,” he said to Harry, punching him unnecessarily in the arm to emphasize how fine he was.

“Okay,” said Harry uncertainly. “It’s just — you looked all glassy eyed, you know, and you have’t even tried the joint yet.”

Louis furrowed his eyebrows before looking down at his hand, which still held the alien grass blunt. “Oh, lmao,” he said. Did he really say “lmao” out loud, or did he actually laugh? I guess we’ll never know. Either way, the sentiment was there. Louis raised the blunt to his lips and, with Harry watching (which was oddly arousing to Louis for some reason), took a puff.


End file.
